Konami and Bloober Team did not tell Jeremy Blaustein, who translated the original game from Japanese into English, about the remake.

The Silent Hill 2 Remake’s story appears to follow the original game, released in 2001. According to Tomasz Gawlikowski, Bloober’s CFO, the video shown was run in Unreal Engine 5, and he believes their product will look similar. Several scenes from the original have also been reimagined (we’ll be curious to see the psychosexual scene with the mannequin characters).

Blaustein has a pretty deep connection to Silent Hill 2. He translated the game’s text and directed motion capture and voice acting. So he was responsible for the translation himself. He saw the announcement on Twitter and reacted: ” Cool! And they will, once again, use the SH2 English script that I wrote/translated  (oh, directed too) completely by myself, and I will get zero compensation for it, and there will not be tens of thousands of people on Twitter outraged on my behalf.” In another tweet, he added that Konami and the Bloober Team had not informed him about the remake, and he thought it would have been nice if they had at least told him…

He was then contacted by GamesRadar, and Blaustein gave the site an extensive response: “My duties on the original were as follows, irrespective of what my official crediting said. I translated every single word of the Silent Hill 2 game. There were no other translators. I directed the voice-over work—all of it. I arranged the auditions, led them, and was one of about four to five people deciding which actors to go with. My voice in those matters was generally agreed to since none of the Japanese staff could judge the actors due to their lack of English ability. I directed the dramatic performances in the motion capture sessions. During the translation, I collaborated with the [Silent Hill] team and [scenario writer Hiroyuki Owaku] in particular on a near-daily basis. As you know, there was no Japanese VO because it was mostly aimed at a Western audience. That testifies to the importance of the script that I wrote.”

He added that he does NOT want to be compensated financially, but it would be good if he got proper recognition for his work in the original game. In the Silent Hill HD Collection, released in 2012 for PS3 and X360 (and of scandalous quality, we might add…), he was listed in Konami’s Special Thanks list. He translated Silent Hill 2 and 3, and these two games were in the package.

Silent Hill 2 Remake is coming to PlayStation 5 and PC. Blaustein doesn’t want any money, so it would be easy to grant his request…

Source: PCGamer